Bird watchers and feeders

Well, a woman I work with had too many pets at home, and appreciates how I care for our guppies (I brought a fish tank to work and she said that she had guppies at home, so she brought some in for me). She gave me her two parakeets, a blue and white male named Zulie (short for Azul) and a green and yellow female named Tookie. They have a beautiful large cage, but I'm still getting them used to being here, and settled in. They are still very timid, but they do make some cute noises.

I have a yellow male canary which was given to me. He also has a big cage, but I can't stand birds in cages, so after he got used to me I built an extension of dowels that attached to his cage at the bottom of the door then opened the door which now sits on top of the dowels. He's never in his cage anymore unless he's gets scared about something. He stays right beside his cage and is right in front of the window where he can see the birdfeeders outside. He sings beautifully so he's good company. You have two birds which might be a problem if you let them out, but you never know until you try it, but then you may not want too.

I'm not really a fan of birds in cages, either. In fact, having birds was not something that I'd ever really considered. Right now, Tookie and Zulie are more settled, making all sorts of noises, but they still scurry to the farthest corners of the cage if Kevin or I come too near. I want them to be more accustomed to us before I consider leting them out. I read an interesting book on parakeet care where the author talked about building a 'parakeet tree'. It is basically some branches lashed together and stuck in a bucket. Apparently parakeets really like them. It may be something that I could do in the future.

The tree idea works great. I made one and my canary loves it. I also planted a container of grass seed, because I had some basil seeds growing on my table in the spring and I noticed him eating the seedlings that were coming up. I wondered what was eating them. I thought it was bugs and then I caught him eating them. I moved them to my greenhouse and thought I'd try the grass seed to see if he likes that. I'll let you know.